Haymarket's Police Force Is Dwindling
Six Departures Reduce Agency by Two-Thirds

By Theresa Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 5, 2006

And then there were three.

After a turbulent year of police disciplinary actions -- officers accused of making sexually explicit comments, standing guard at an illegal poker game and trying to break down an estranged wife's door with a hatchet-- the Haymarket police force has been whittled down by two-thirds.

In the past few months, the department dropped from nine officers to three.

One was fired, one quit and four fell under the ax of a Town Council decision to suspend the auxiliary police program.

"The citizens in that town pay extra taxes to have their own private police department, to have police coverage 24 hours a day, and they are not getting it," said Charlie Proffitt, a former auxiliary officer who worked with the department 2 1/2 years. "I don't think anyone in that town currently knows that they are down to three police officers."

He and the three other auxiliary officers who worked for the department as volunteers without pay received a letter dated Jan. 27 saying that the Town Council was suspending the program. Council members said they are reevaluating the program's efficiency, but at least a few of the dismissed officers said it felt like a retaliatory slap in the face.

Auxiliary officers undergo the same training as full-time officers. They have uniforms, badges and guns. Some, such as Proffitt, who had been a sheriff's deputy in two counties, had other police experience.

"They run that place like it's their own little business," Proffitt said. "They don't do what's good for the town; they do what's good for themselves."

"You're getting people that were free, that were actually generating revenue for the town," said former auxiliary officer Tim Benjamin. He estimates that he generated $3,000 to $4,000 a month in fines.

Haymarket Mayor Pamela Stutz said the issue in the small town of about 1,000 residents has become inflated by past conflicts and has "just gotten blown out of perspective." In an election year -- where Benjamin is running for mayor and his wife, Vicki, and a recently fired officer, Robert A. Hoffman Jr., are running for council seats -- the issue will only become bigger.

"You can try to convince people of certain things, and if they have made up their minds, they've made up their minds," Stutz said, adding that the program was not halted in retaliation. "I'm sorry that anyone is feeling that, but I don't think it's true.

"It was never intended that the program was going away," she said.

The council was concerned that auxiliary officers, who work 16 to 20 hours a month, were overlapping their shifts with full-time officers, she said. The council voted unanimously to suspend the program, giving Police Chief James E. Roop until last Tuesday to present evidence on how the program could be run more efficiently.

But Tuesday came and went with no plan.

Roop said he requested more time to investigate further. He said he has no doubt the program will be restored. "The town is not going to cut off its nose to spite its face," Roop said.

In the meantime, the full-time force has also dwindled.

The council recently voted to fire Hoffman, who had been charged in December with standing guard at an illegal poker game in Fairfax County. Hoffman also prompted a sexual harassment investigation last summer against Roop and Sgt. Gregory Breeden, saying they created a hostile work environment by talking "about sex and women's body parts on a constant basis." Roop and Breeden were suspended for 15 days without pay.

"Now everyone involved in that investigation is no longer with the department, and the chief is still sitting there," Benjamin said.

So is Breeden, who in September lost the right to carry a gun after his estranged wife accused him of threatening the family and trying to break down a kitchen door with a hatchet.

On Friday, Roop said he and Breeden are "going to have the department back up and running professional like it was before all the turmoil." His priority, he said, is filling the two vacant full-time police positions by the end of the month.

In a Feb. 1 letter to the Town Council after Hoffman's termination, and before Officer Mike Thompson quit, Roop addressed the immediate need for more police presence.

"Over 200 overtime hours have been worked by the Town's officers to compensate for Officer Hoffman's suspension," he wrote. "Cumulatively, the officers of our department have over 630 hours of leave on the books, this translates to over 15 weeks of leave, which the officers are entitled to take should the need arise."

Stutz acknowledged that Haymarket is a growing town with a growing need. She described it as a "cut-through town," where a crash on Interstate 66 is immediately known because the town's roads fill with drivers looking to reroute. It's a town where the image of farmland has faded into one of construction. Five major development projects are underway.

"That has changed our whole perspective as far as the police force goes," Stutz said. "Am I concerned that we have three police officers now trying to handle our police department? Yes, that's why we are hiring."

Council member James Tobias said that although he finalized the language of the proposition suspending the program, he is "going to be one of the loudest speakers saying we need to bring it back."

"We need help in the town," Tobias said. "Soon it's going to spring again, and we're going to have long daylight hours and kids out later and all the problems that come with that."